Bleeding Shadows
by Maiga Ryu
Summary: Raven is slowly loosing herself. But is there another Titan who understands more than she lets on? RavenStarfire Friendship.
1. Conflict

This is my first fanfic, so I just want honest feedback, not flattery or useless flames. You can flame if you feel it's necessary, but just tell me what's wrong.

This is kinda unhappy, so you've been warned. There is no slash love in this (sorry f/f fans ) or romance of any kind (yet, we'll have to see). The love mention in this is strictly friend to friend.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Teen Titans belongs to DC Comics and whoever has the animation rights.

Thanx, and if you would review, it would be really nice.

Maigaryu

**Key**

"Talking"

'_Thinking'_

_Lyrics_

_------------- _

**Conflict (Everybody's Fool)**

Raven sat alone in her room. Trigon was hassling her again, and she was starting to feel sick in the perfect silence. But it was better than going out. Starfire was out there, and she was even more sick of the other female Titan.

Not because of her cheerful exterior, she could put up with that (for short periods of time), but because she had seen that's just what it was, an exterior. She had looked deeper than usual into those green on green eyes and had the shock of her life.

There was a sorrowful, down-to-earth, very intelligent Starfire under all those constant smiles and naïve words. Star was living a lie. And Raven hated liars.

_**Perfect by nature**_

_**Icons of self-indulgence**_

_**Just what we all need**_

_**More lies about a world that**_

Raven had had so many lies in her life, that she took people she trusted lying very personally. That's why she had gone postal on Robin after the whole "Red X" thing. But she wasn't going to think about that right now. Thinking about Red X would make her angry all over again, and that wouldn't help her Trigon-induced headache.

But Star living a lie? That hurt.

_**Never was and never will be**_

_**Have you no shame don't you see me**_

_**You know you've got everybody fooled**_

Sure, Raven herself had issues, but at least she didn't try to pretend like everything's okay.

Through the haze of a fresh wave of pain and hatred, Raven could sense someone coming up the hall to her room_. 'Oh shit'_, Raven couldn't suppress the groan that came to her lips. _'Starfire.'_

_**Look here she comes now**_

_**Bow down and stare in wonder**_

_**Oh how we love you**_

_**No flaws when you're pretending**_

_**But now I know she**_

_**Never was and never will be**_

_**You don't know how you've betrayed me**_

_**And somehow you've got everybody fooled**_

'_I can't deal with this right now, I can't…'_

KNOCK KNOCK

"Raven?" the hesitant voice on the other side called. And there was only one reason that the empath allowed her to enter, really, even answered at all.

Starfire sounded far more subdued than usual.

"What do you want?" Damn. Her voice was strained, and the words more clipped than usual.

Star hesitated before speaking. "You…did not seem well when you left the room. You looked…" She seemed reluctant to push forward, but finally did, "…ready to cry. I was worried." Her eyes were fixed on the carpet between them.

Raven couldn't help but blink at that. Star had seen her leave? She didn't think anyone was paying attention to her exit. It always took several minutes (if at all) for anyone to notice she was gone, usually when they turned to her for something. "You know more than you let on, Starfire." It wasn't a question. The truth that both of them knew but had never said aloud hung between them.

So did Raven's bitterness, and Starfire had no idea why, or what to do about it.

**_Without the mask where will you hide?_**

_**Can't find yourself lost in your lie**_

_**I know the truth now**_

_**I know who you are**_

_**And I don't love you anymore**_

"I know your father is hurting you." There was no trace of the usual Starfire now. "I want to help you Raven. But I can't if you wont let me."

Raven was suddenly furious. "The only way could even try to understand is if you've been in similar pain." She snarled, her words almost daring Starfire to contradict her. The venom in her voice, which would have the old Starfire cowering behind the door, didn't even make her flinch. She stood firm, her eyes resolved.

"You're right Raven, I've never been mentally abused before," Raven's eyes widened in shock and horror (how had she _known_?) "So I can't really understand. But I'd still like to try, if you'd share with me. I'll always try to understand, because you're my friend, and I love you."

Raven sat stunned for a moment, and was almost compelled to talk with her.

Almost.

_**It never was and never will be**_

_**You don't know how you've betrayed me**_

_**And somehow you've got everybody fooled**_

Unfortunately, she was still to angry at Starfire to want to talk with her. "Well, I'm not in a very 'sharing' mood right now. Leave." She turned her back on the other Titan, a clear dismissal.

Starfire turned to go, but as she was going through the door, she heard Raven's whisper.

"_**Never was and never will be**_

**_You're not real and you can't save me_**

_**Somehow now you're Everybody's Fool."**_

Knowing there was nothing she could say to that, Starfire quietly closed the door.

((End Conflict))

**A mask is only a mask so long as you wear it and it doesn't wear you. Once you forget where the lines exist, who then is real and who pretend?**

"_Everybody's Fool" by Evanescence_


	2. Introspective One

Introspective One (Starfire : Faint. 07)

_**I am a little bit of loneliness  
**__**Little bit of disregard**_

Raven has always been a reclusive person by nature, and I can respect her for it. Really. But there are some mysteries that make people easily drawn to, and some that you just want to _scream_.

It seems more often than not, Raven makes me want to scream. It's not that I act like a child to fool anyone for a real reason, its just that her pain makes me want to find a way to fix things. The only way I know how is to smile.

_**Handful of complaints  
**__**But I can't help the fact that everyone can see these scars**_

She's scarred. And in constant pain, and has just so many wounds that I'm not even sure _she_ can tell _herself_ how much she is bleeding. So her life just goes into shock, spinning out of whatever control she relies on to see her through before it all falls apart.

The moment I met her, I knew that there was a parallel between us. However indistinct it may have been, I could tell that in some ways we were the same. One look in her eyes said it all. It took me longer to decide just what it was about her eyes. It wasn't until I went out with the boys one evening a few weeks into the start of the team.

She wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary for her. Still quiet, observant, alert, withdrawn. She was just watching, and she does it very well. There was no change in her face, or her eyes at all. Completely unreadable, but it just clicked. Her eyes were to dark, to sad, had seen the lowest of what the universe had to offer between here and hell and I was one of the few people who understood – once you have seen the true evil, you can never take it back. Once you have lived inside the _real_ darkness, some of it never, ever lets go completely when you finally leave it.

Her eyes said that she had seen far to much, far to fast, in her life. More than someone a hundred times her age should have to witness. And she was still standing. Though, not without her casualties.

_**I am what I want you to want  
**__**What it want you to feel  
**__**But it's like no matter what I do  
**__**I can't convince you to just believe this is real**_

So I know that we're similar. We both have family problems – hers deeper than my own – and we both hide in other people's expectations. I probably know more personal stuff about her than just about anyone else. Could that be what had her so angry at me? Angry enough to hold this chilling feud?

It was subtle of course. Everything about Raven is. Unobtrusive enough that the boys don't notice a thing. I'm certain they don't, because if they did, Raven would be ignoring them too. Since our sort-of-fight four days ago she hasn't spoken more than six words to me, all curt _yes_ or _no_.

Really, if I had known that trying to show her it was alright to have shadows in your eyes and still be happy would piss her off, I would have tried something else from the beginning. I had thought that we were finally getting somewhere, after that whole switching bodies thing, but I must have waited to long to try and talk about it more. When I finally thought it would be a good time, to give her the opportunity to talk to me (since she needed to talk to _someone_) she had been to upset to open up and slammed the emotional door shut, locking it so tight I could no longer coax her out.

_That_ was a backfire I was never expecting. "Totally out of left field" as one of the boys would say.

_**So I let go watching you  
**__**Turn your back like you always do **_

That's her whole problem. I hate having to watch her strain through the insanity and bloodlust to reach a pretend peace that she deserves more than anyone. Every time something happens, she can never deal with it. So in the end she turns away from everyone else and shoves it as deep down as she can get it and it just ends up seeping into her bones and never going away.

I watch her drown in the blood from her own wounds because they wont stop bleeding, and none of it can escape from inside the walls she's constructed.

_**Face away, pretend that I'm not  
**__**But I'll be here 'cause you're all that I got**_

Or maybe… you put that wall up not to keep others out, but to keep something of yourself in? Is that why you wont move from your fortress? Not that it will factor into my decision. I'm always watching you, keeping a sharp eye on you when you think no one can see. And if I see you go under, to hell with your personal space, I'll tear your walls down and _force_ you to accept my help to stop your bleeding. I wont let you drown yourself in your past. I'll always be there to make you breathe.

Now getting you to see it is the second hardest thing in the world, the first being getting you to believe it once you do. You have such a hard time trusting others, that it makes me want to find the people who made you this way and fry them.

_**I can't feel the way I did before  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored  
**__**Time won't heal this damage anymore  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored**_

Really Raven, do you think that we all will just wait and hope everything will be okay? Even with your meditation, and distance, and control, it wont last. Just clinging to borrowed time.

X'hal, your whole life must feel like borrowed time.

But you can't afford to wait any longer, Raven. Standing tall and alone isn't helping you anymore – if it ever helped you at all.

I know you're scared. But what scares me most is that you'll slip into some shadow we can't follow or find you in and lose you forever.

_**I am a little bit insecure  
**__**A little unconfident  
**__**Cause you don't understand  
**__**I do what I can, sometimes I don't make sense**_

I suppose then all any of us, your friends, can do is grab hold of you and refuse to let go. Since the boys don't seem to be able to see you fading, then I have to grab you. You don't understand that I stay so far into the light, so that we have some ground to keep you farther away from the shadow. My arms only reach so far, and so long as I don't let go, you wont be able to fall to far.

_**I am what you never want to say  
**__**But I've never had a doubt  
**__**It's like no matter what I do  
**__**I can't convince you  
**__**For once just to hear me out**_

We are more the same than any of the others Raven, and I know you sense it. You wouldn't be much of a physic if you didn't (and I know you're a great one). You can get closer to the light, like I am, but you are not sure you can win, and for some reason will not try. I'd help you fight, we all would, but still…

You wont listen to any of us, will you? Of course you wont. You'll do what you want. As always.

No, 'want' is the wrong word. 'What you think you have to do' is what I was thinking of. If you did what you 'wanted', you'd be dead. Not that we'd let you do that any more than that demon father of yours. Guess we can be selfish to.

_**So I let go watching you  
**__**Turn your back like you always do  
**__**Face away and pretend that I'm not  
**__**But I'll be here cause you're all that I've got**_

I'll let you turn away from me. I wont _like_ it, Raven, I'll never like it, but I'm willing to allow it because you're still here, and I know that the alternative will be leaving for good if I push it. As long as I can still see you, then we'll be okay.

You turn, and you ignore us, but you haven't walked away yet. That more than anything gives me hope. Because if we weren't worth the time, then you would have walked away. And really, none of us could have stopped you. Could stop you, if you really meant to leave and never come back. But you haven't, so that means you have hope too, however small or unrealized.

_**I can't feel the way I did before  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored  
**__**Time wont heal this damage anymore  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored**_

You walk a fine line between insanity and emotional emptiness, and are juggling us all while you're at it.

_**Hear me out now  
**__**You're gonna listen to me  
**__**Like it or not  
**__**Right now, hear me out now  
**__**You're gonna listen to me like it or not  
**__**Right now**_

But you don't have to do it alone. Listen to me! Let us help you, let us be there, let us take care of you, let us protect you from yourself for a change. Let, let, let, we can't _do_ anything unless you **let** us. Let us worry for a change and just be happy, dammit. You have to rest sometime, Raven…

Please rest? Please? For me?

You can't keep going if you don't learn to sleep.

_**I can't feel  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored**_

Learn to sleep, Raven. Learn to _trust_. Learn to heal. We can teach you. Just start listening to us.

We can make it. Make it better, make it **right**. I wont let you ignore me forever, Raven. We'll all find a way to help you walk that line, and we'll make it wonderful.

Someday.

Someday soon, it would seem.

Because I don't think that you have the time for anything less than soon.

_**Time wont heal  
**__**Don't turn your back on me  
**__**I wont be ignored**_

((End Introspective One))

'**Lost' and 'found' are such relative terms. If being found is living my whole life following the plan of someone else, step for step, then I'd much rather stay lost.**

"_Faint .07" by Linkin Park_


	3. Introspective Two

Introspective Two (Raven : Breathe No More)

_**I've been looking in the mirror for so long  
**__**That I've come to believe that my soul's on the other side**_

I'm so tired of looking at someone else in my reflection. Not that anyone knows, but I never see myself in any reflective surface. Or rather, I see the me that I keep caged, buried, hidden and restrained. And every glance, every single glimpse, is always the demon of my mind.

I don't have any mirrors in my room at all. Not even in the adjacent bathroom, and when I use the others, I never look in them. I only look in one mirror. The one that Beast Boy and Cyborg fell through. At least there I can see the monster in its cage and not in me.

But sometimes, it gets loose in the mirror. Sometimes, I can see it without the bars, an illusion of freedom that it creates. I can still sense the restraints, sense that I retain whatever meager control over it that I maintain, but I can't see it. And that's the worst.

Because it's during times like these that I know it can see me.

_**All the little pieces falling – shatter.  
**__**Shards of me,  
**__**Too sharp to put back together.**_

Like now, for an excellent example. After that not-really-a-fight with Starfire a week ago, I've caught it stirring more and more often. Pacing. Prowling. _Waiting_. She's been staring at me for a while, and so I've been staring back. After lunch, I locked myself in my room and took out my mirror. One of the others would think that I'm meditating, as I just sit here and stare at my reflection in a hand mirror without blinking or twitching. But I'm not doing anything of the sort. Just staring. Like she's staring at me.

This person I don't know. And the one in my skin. That is what makes this so hard. She may be influenced by my father, but she's still totally me. In me, about me, _is_ me. She's beautiful, and expressive, and powerful, and very, very dangerous. Usually she's so nasty, snapping and hating. But today she just looks, so I just look back.

But she's breaking me. She knows it and I know she knows it. She's what I will become someday, that demon temptress that will live for the night and the pain she has the power of bringing. It's almost like she's slowly trying to reverse our places, so it's her on the outside and I'm the one that's the reflection. There are times when I think that she's done it already.

Its little things, painful things. Things that will never be gone, no matter how hard I try to forget them, because they are what cannot be forgotten. The memories that wont be lost. A slip of control here, an extra unnecessary coldness there. I hurt someone, and more of me breaks off, another shard of the reflection I'm slowly becoming hits the floor and stares back at me with the guilt and accusation.

_**Too small to matter,  
**_**_But big enough to cut me into so many little pieces  
_****_If I try to touch her._**

I can't clean them up. Every time I touch them, they cut too deeply, and the wound never closes.

_**And I bleed,  
**__**I bleed,  
**__**And I breathe,  
**__**I breathe no more**_

A set of crimson eyes stare steadily back into my violet irises. I note absently that the second set is closed. Trigon must be occupied with other matters besides my seduction. The thought gives me no comfort. She watches me watch her, out of my own face, in my own mind, thinking my own thoughts and scheming my fathers.

She's waiting for me. To do what, I have no idea, but she'll wait forever for me to screw up, I know that much. She's as patient as the dead. Waiting is, after all, all she can do. I'd rather not fall for any of her tricks, but I'm getting restless.

So I finally reach out with my mind, in something not-quite meditation and brush against her. The sound comes instantly, the beat of the song she has playing inside my head flowing over me. Outwardly, I give no movement, not even a change in expression, but inside I've frozen. Even as the cold seeps in and clings gleefully to my bones.

**_Take a breath and I try to draw from my spirits well.  
_**_**Yet again you refuse to drink like a stubborn child.**_

One of her eyebrows quirks up. It was only then that I realize that was what she was waiting for me to do. And now that I hear it, I can't make it go away. Damn her.

Suddenly, faster than anyone could see, my fist flashed out and slammed into the glass. The shards flew everywhere, surrounding me. Sharp bits littering the floor. Pain flared through my senses as blood began running in rivers down my arm from the deep gashes in my hand. It was the first movement within my room all afternoon.

But it still wasn't enough to get my mind away from the words of the song as they flowed through me. I dropped the mirror frame from numbed fingers to hold my bleeding hand close to my chest. Ignoring the blood and glass all over. I started rocking slightly, head bowed, as a few desperate lines slipped from me, part of me hoping for someone to answer.

"_**Lie to me,  
**__**Convince me that I've been sick forever.  
**__**And all of this,  
**__**Will make sense when I get better."**_

Silence. No one else was there, after all. No one was ever there. Bitterly, the next lines came, and I could not stop them as they fell from me.

"_**But I know the difference,  
**__**Between myself and my reflection.  
**__**I just can't help but to wonder,  
**__**Which of us do you love?"**_

Which indeed? The other people in my life couldn't tell the difference. Did they love the powerful titan that fought and never had any problems? Did they love my reflection? Or the lost little girl bleeding on the floor surrounded by glass?

I didn't need a magic mirror to tell me the answer to _that_.

_**So I bleed,  
**__**I bleed,  
**__**And I breathe,**_

I knew I'd have to fix the mirror later. But for now, I just curled up tighter on the floor. The longer I could put it off, the longer I would go without. I hate that mirror.

_**I breathe no…  
**__**Bleed  
**__**I bleed,**_

The music never faded.

_**And I breathe,  
**__**I breathe,**_

I just sat in the dark and bled. While my fractured reflection watched silently from many crimson eyes.

_**I breathe-  
**__**I breathe no more.**_

((End Introspective Two))

**Is the only way to escape your own shadow to venture into the deepest of all the darkness? Or does that just let the demon drown you?**

"_Breathe No More" By Evanescence_


	4. Resolution

Resolution (Breathe 2 AM)

'_It's very cold tonight,'_ Starfire mused as she ascended the stairs to the roof. _'Or perhaps,' _pushing open the last door, greeted by a rush of frigid air, _'it is the ice within that prompts such feelings.'_

Still, she moved forward, footsteps light and almost wary as she welcomed the night and evening air around her. The moon above her was a wellspring of silver, oozing light softly to drown all below. Coating all, yet somehow still insubstantial, like cigarette smoke on a breeze, hovering – then gone.

So captivated by the sight, it was some minutes before she was aware of the other person on the roof.

_**2 AM and she calls me cause I'm still awake**_

"Friend Raven." She stated with some surprise, as the blue form at the edge of the roof could be no one else. Yet the shadows were drawn in closer than she thought they could, even with her powers. Like they were trying to choke her –

"I am glad to see you well." She stopped her last thought rather hastily, before the worry could surface and the empath would sense it. Then moving on to slightly more dangerous waters, "I have not seen much of you lately. Perhaps we should be doing the 'hanging out' sometime, so as to have more assurances that the other is well and-"

"Starfire." Raven's voice finally cut through her babblings, sharp and empty. The alien could not stop the wince; glad now that the other girl's back was turned. Raven was in a foul and dangerous mood, and her temper was not something to test or push when it was this far gone from the start. "It is 2:15 in the morning. What are you doing up here? Normal people sleep at this time."

"Pardon me, Friend, but you are not asleep either."

"No. I said _normal people_ sleep at two in the morning. Neither applies to me."

_**Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?  
**__**I don't love him, winter just wasn't my season**_

Starfire chose not to go into that one. The first thing you learned as a Titan was not battle tactics, but that it Was Not Possible To Out Argue Raven. Shortly after you learned Where Raven's Personal Space Boundaries Are, When You Should Not Bother Her (this was certain activities ((meditating)) and times ((between the hours of 6 and 8 in the morning, as she was probably meditating))), and Never Enter Ravens Room. (The last was learned after the first three, only because you had to survive to try and get into her room first.)

So arguing would get her nowhere. If even Robin could not talk her out of something, then no one else stood a chance.

Instead, it was probably time to try a different tactic. "It would make me feel better if you were to take better care of yourself, Raven. Perhaps we should venture inside and find something hot to drink?"

"No." The refusal was curt and flat, but underneath was a tremor of …something.

"Why?" Such a small three letter word, but also the embodiment of everything she wished to understand about her friend.

"The boys are downstairs." Came the vague reply.

Tilted head to the right, "What does our friends being there have to do with you staying up here? I do not understand." If one of them said something to her…

The half demon stalled for a time before finally relenting "Beast Boy called me creepy." _Again_ hung between them unspoken.

_**So we walk through that door, so accusing their eyes  
**__**Like they have any right at all to criticize  
**_**_Hypocrites you're all here for the very same reason_**

'_I'm going to kill him.' _She decided pleasantly, while drawing up a politely confused smile and focusing her emotions to naïve bewilderment and concern. "But surely, as you have just said, they are sleeping, and you would not run into them at this time. I am sure that Beast Boy's words were not meant to hurt you," _'If they were, I'd have throttled him sooner'_, "and if they have upset you so, he will apologize in the morning." _'Even if I have to drag him through it myself.'_

As she drew breath for another shot at bringing her off the roof (and away from that edge, it seemed she was getting a little _to_ comfortable so close), she was once again cut off by the sound of her name.

"Koriand'r."

Abruptly, she was aware that the other girl had turned her head, just enough to give her a piercing stare out of the corner of one violet eye.

"Shut up. And stop focusing your emotions; it's giving me a headache."

So she dropped the smile into a more neutral - and slightly concerned - expression, while beginning a chant in her mind, quelling the slight tremor of panic and soothing her emotions, just as Raven herself had taught her.

"I am sorry for hurting you." She murmured quietly. "We can get some tea, and aspirin for your headache." Maybe a more roundabout way…

"Stop trying to manipulate me by talking in circles." Raven snapped, and this time Starfire was sure she caught her wince. "And I'm not going inside, so leave me alone."

"Beast Boy doesn't mean to upset you."

"He never _means_ any of it, but he never learns, it always happens again, and he's never sorry because he _doesn't understand_!"

_**But you can't jump the tracks  
**__**We're like cars on a cable  
**__**And life's like an hourglass glued to the table**_

A suspicion began to grow. "Doesn't understand what, Raven? How thoughtless he's being?" Silence. "Or how hypocritical?" Still no words, but a shift in posture, sharp and minute. Starfire knew she'd found it. "They are not judging you, Raven. They'd have no right, even if they were."

"Oh?"

"Of course not." Starfire resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "The reason you are a Titan, is because you can do things a normal person on this planet cannot. That is the same reason that they and I are here as well – because we can do things that people can't. If you are 'creepy' or 'weird', then they are not all that far off, are they?"

"…So you're saying that freaks flock together."

This time she didn't bother resisting the eye-roll. "What I'm _saying_ is that their intention is not to judge – so you should be less sensitive about it."

_**No one can find the re-wind button girl  
**__**So cradle your head in your hand  
**__**And breathe, just breathe  
**__**Oh, breathe, just breathe**_

"I'm not being _sensitive_!" The witch snarled, turning to face her fully for the first time so fast her cloak snapped – twisting and writhing like a living thing – before settling around her again. Once more there was the tremor in her voice, but longer this time – and then Starfire was able to place it.

Fear. "Why are you angry?" Starfire asked instead, filling that away for later use. Then when the other looked away, as if ashamed, "There is nothing wrong with having emotions, my friend."

"It's pointless."

"It's not." She insisted patiently. Rashness got you nothing with Raven. Probably why only Cyborg or Starfire ever really had long conversations with her – Beast Boy didn't have the attention, and Robin was just to impacent (as Slade has so often told him). "Having emotions signifies you're human."

"But I'm not. Haven't we been over this already?" Dark tone, biting sarcasm.

"Part of you is." She hedged stubbornly. "Isn't that reason enough?"

"To what, lie? Pretend?" She was smoldering now, the anger doused by logic, but unwilling to leave fully once finally burning. She was trying, so very hard, to rip holes in Starfire's argument by stating it in ways almost untruthfully blunt. It was, Starfire would decide later, a frightfully effective tactic.

But the alien would see this argument stayed afloat. "To Choose," she responded, "what you want to be."

_**May he turned 21 on the base of Fort Bliss  
**__**Just today he sat down to the flask in his fist  
**__**Ain't been sober since maybe October of last year**_

The last of the anger fled, leaving only the empty, solemn calmness that was Raven. Starfire was unsure if this was a good or bad thing.

"Your birthday was…very bad." Raven's face perfectly reflected her thoughts on _that_ understatement. "But don't you think that all of this is a bit of a delayed reaction? We should be moving _forward_ now, instead of trying to go back to obsess over it, and hope that time will just let us go back and stop."

"I don't _obsess_."

"I'm sorry. Would you rather I say 'angst to death over with emotions that are pointless'?"

There was a long silence before she got a response. "…that was way to many words." Which she translated into Raven's way of allowing that 'obsess' wasn't so bad after all.

Really, Starfire decided that the bluntness technique was very effective. Perhaps she could adapt it to a naivety technique that would work for her…

Getting off topic, but that thought was also stored away for later.

Another burst of cold wind reminded her of her original goal for this conversation, and decided she wasn't still _completely_ at square one, as Raven _had_ turned around to face her as they talked.

"Well, to many words or not, you've already made the choice to be human, so you may as well try and live with it."

A cynical eyebrow rose at that. "And just what would you know about my choices?"

Starfire recognized her only shot for what it was, and went in for the kill.

_**Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while  
**__**But my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles  
**__**Wanna hold him, maybe I'll just sing about it.**_

"I know that you try very hard not to care, when really you _do_ care, probably to much for your own good. I know that we have become very important to you. That this importance is what keeps you from walking away. I realize that you want to save us from whatever you can, no matter how much you suffer in the end." All of these, such human traits. Things only the sentient human life could come up with.

Starfire drew a deep breath, then plunged even deeper. "I know that you want to join society, but don't think the wish is very logically sound. I know that you feel you have to live you're entire life in objective calmness, and the fact that you _feel_ this is yet another contradiction about yourself you don't understand or enjoy.

"I know you don't like yourself much, and have no particular attachment to your own life. I also know that you wish this wasn't so.

"I know that you wish to trust us to protect you, but can't allow that if it will bring us to hurt.

"If these are not the choices of a human, Raven, then I must have the definition all wrong again. Those all sound like human traits to me. But then, I'm just an objective outsider."

For a very long time, Raven didn't move. She could only stand there, with very wide eyes, and the strangest expression on her face. Starfire decided after a while of this that it was the first - and most likely last and only - time that the empath had ever been so completely baffled as to fully stop all progressive thought.

Starfire could tell when Raven's legendary wits finally caught up with her – it was an impressive, and probably record-breaking several minutes – by the slackness of her face disappearing and the shrinking of her eyes. She could tell that the other girl was still somewhat confused, and still a little baffled, as she processed just how spectacularly she had lost _that_ argument. There was a shine of bewilderment in her eyes, and fading irritation, and a trace of amused respect flitting through the violet as her mind finally began deciding where to go now – and all of this was seen by the alien, and appreciated greatly. Starfire had clearly won the argument, so…

She was quite surprised, and yet not very, when that decision was reached.

Raven smiled – a bare upturn of her lips, that wasn't fully suppressed – and turned to the door, sweeping past the other titan, clearly expecting her to follow, yet pretending like she didn't care. "It's getting cold. I think I want some tea, and an Advil."

Starfire was only off-balance for a moment. She regained herself quickly as she let Raven pass her, only saying "Of course." Raven's smiles were so rare, and she found she was quite pleased to find that a properly lost argument could bring one.

(Even when it was slight, it changed her whole look, made her seem so painfully, beautifully _human_, that the change was almost frightening, unless you knew Raven well enough to fully understand that _yes_, the witch really was human, and _yes_, she was fully capable of such worldly things.)

She also didn't do anything to disturb the air that the suggestion of tea hadn't already been made by someone else.

Really, she decided as she hid her own smile and stamped down furiously on her amusement, Raven acted far more human than she realized, or would ever care to allow if she knew.

Saving face was another very human trait.

_**Cause you can't jump the track  
**__**We're like cars on a cable  
**__**And life's like a hourglass glued to the table,  
**__**No one can find the re-wind button boys**_

The two of them made their way steadily downwards, using the stairs and being careful to not wake anyone else in the tower. Just because Starfire had gotten her inside didn't mean that the sorceress had forgotten that the people she had originally been avoiding where around, nor her want to not see them lessened any. So they both stayed carefully silent all the way down to the kitchen.

Once the lights had been turned on, Starfire grabbed the tea kettle as Raven pulled down the cups, and in perfect harmony they set everything up. It was Starfire who poured the tea in the cups, and so it was with no small amount of surprise to her when Raven finally reached out for the offered cup that she finally saw the stark white of medical bandages wrapped all over her hand.

A sharp thrill of panic, completely unsuppressed, "Raven! What happened to your hand?" Now looking, she could see splotches of crimson all along the knuckles through the white. Raven realized her mistake far to late, but jerked her hand back nevertheless, hiding it within the depths of her cloak and using her other, uninjured, hand to snatch the still offered cup from the air. She said nothing.

"When did you get hurt?" Starfire asked again, lowering her voice as the flashing _2:45_ of the microwave clock just over Ravens shoulder admonished her that their friends (the people Raven was trying to avoid) were still sleeping. "Why haven't you healed it yet? It's still _bleeding_!"

Raven swallowed her painkillers and averted her eyes, even as she answered. "It's not important." Her voice warning the alien away from the subject, clearly closing it as one that they couldn't talk about at this time, perhaps ever.

But this was something that Starfire was not going to let slide away. Warning bells were going off in her head. Goddess, was Trigon _physically_ hurting her now? "Don't even _try_ to tell me you bleeding isn't important." She spoke firmly, gently prying the now half empty cup from her friends hand. As she expected, her other hand came up to try and stop her, and she latched onto the wrist as she set Ravens cup next to her untouched mug on the counter as she pulled the smaller girl to the bathroom.

Ravens half-hearted struggles and protest was completely ignored.

_**So cradle your head in your hand  
**_**_And breathe, just breathe  
_**_**Whoa breathe, just breathe**_

With a final tug, she pulled Raven – still complaining – across the threshold and kicked the door shut. A flick of her free wrist had the mirror cabinet open, and the small first aid kit in every bathroom (and most of the other rooms in the tower as well) in front of her.

Never once did she relinquish her hold on the smaller girl, half expecting her to try and vanish the second she did. So it was with one hand that she snipped the dirtied bandage away with the small silver scissors inside the kit.

Raven had fallen strangely silent by now, arm complacent to what Starfire wanted, her face shielded from all her thoughts and her blank eyes staring at some empty point in space.

When the last of the bandage fell away, Starfire couldn't stop the choked gasp or the curse that slipped. "Shit! Raven, did you break something?" The entire area between her knuckles and the first joints on her hand were with deep gashing cuts, a decent amount of them still oozing blood slowly. Star leaned in slightly to see better, but jerked back again soon after, her face even paler. "You didn't even bother to pull most of the glass out!"

She scrambled for the tweezers and antiseptic inside the kit, still ranting. Ravens complete lack of reaction, her total indifference to the entire situation, frightened and infuriated her in a way that she had never quite felt before. "When did this happen?" She demanded again, much harsher than before and probably harsher than she had wanted, but she didn't stop it. "Are you fucking _crazy_? You could get an infection, or make the wounds worse, or lose your hand, or a million other things!" Her language was also deteriorating, but Raven still hadn't said anything, and now she was desperate for some sort of reaction.

"Why didn't you say anything?" She snapped, the sharp fury in her voice harshly contrasted by the complete gentleness of her hands as she pulled the thin shards out of her wounds. It really wasn't helping her nerves that the other Titan was just watching her poke around in her flesh with a sort of lazy indifference. It was very unnerving that Raven could just watch her pulling things out from under her skin with the same attention she would give a bug on the wall.

_**There's a light at each end of this tunnel you shout  
**__**Cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out**_

The tiny bits were reflective on one side she noticed, as the blood glided off them onto the edge of the sink. "Did you break a mirror?" She asked gently.

The question garnered more reaction than all of her anger and cursing combined. Ravens lethargic look vanished instantly, being replaced with a baleful glare as she suddenly scowled at her hand as if admonishing it. Starfire's anger dissipated with the look. Raven finally answered her most asked question.

"Three days ago."

The anger came rushing back.

_**And these mistakes you've made  
**__**You'll just make them again**_

"Three days! You've been walking around with glass in your hand for _three whole days_?" For some reason Starfire couldn't explain, the anger left as fast as it had come, leaving her feeling tired and drained. "Why?" she asked resignedly, knowing she had to say it, yet also just knowing that Raven was going to ignore the question.

She was more than a little surprised when Raven answered, in prompt honesty.

"I don't know."

_**If you'll only try turning around**_

Starfire was silent for a while, carefully gauging her next words as she spread the antiseptic on the open wounds. Then she finally offered, quietly, "Would you like me to help you find out?"

_**2 AM and I'm still awake writing a song  
**__**If I get it all down on paper it's no longer inside of me  
**__**Threaten' the life it belongs to.**_

Raven was still silent for a time, eyes fixed on the small clock on the opposite wall, the minute hand almost at the ten. Finally she looked to Starfire herself, for the first time since her bandage had been discovered. "There isn't any help to give."

For the third time that night, Starfire heard the thrill of fear in the girls voice, and realized that she had somehow stumbled onto it's source. Raven was frightened that there was no hope, no help for her or her problems, and that the best she could achieve was what she had now, the current stalemate of wills.

Starfire looked at Raven briefly before going back to studying her hand. "What you can't do alone, can usually be done with someone else." She told her carefully. Together they watched for a moment as Raven's body began its work. With the glass removed at last, her demon blood was finally able to begin closing the wounds. "Trouble is," She continued conversationally, eyeing one of the larger cuts and deciding if it needed more medicine, then applying it, "I can only bandage the wounds you show me."

Starfire pressed on the cut slightly more than necessary, causing Ravens eyes to instinctively look up and getting caught in the green gaze. "I can only stop the bleeding if I know where it's coming from."

**_And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd  
_**_**Cause these words are my diary screaming out loud  
**__**And I know that you'll use them however you want to.**_

The sorceress stared at her for several long moments with wide, venerable eyes, before the gaze finally fell to the small trickles of blood still falling absently from a few cuts.

"Me." She whispered at last, the effort to say them clear. "It's just…coming from me."

And while Starfire could understand what she meant, she could only think of one way to get that horrible, frightened, dependent look off her face. To bring back her old confidence. "That's a little vague. I could put you in a full body cast, if you like."

Raven blinked, and scowled imperiously, and suddenly was deciding whether to cause her benefactor bodily harm with narrowed eyes.

_**But you can't jump the track  
**__**We're like cars on a cable  
**__**And life's like and hourglass glued to the table**_

"If you wanted me to hurt you that badly, all you had to do was ask." The half demon informed her with a dark look. Starfire felt much better, despite the dangerous look that promised retribution. Raven had finally made her return.

"If it's all the same, I'll skip the injuries, thanks." Now she didn't stop the slightly amused smile. "Do you still want me to be your nurse?"

"Not if you don't stop acting as childish as _Beast Boy_."

And she felt better than she had in over a week as she carefully rewrapped Ravens hand, because that was as close as receiving permission to take care of her as she was going to get from Raven.

_**No one can find the rewind button now  
**__**Sing it if you understand…yeah breathe**_

She finished tying the last knot on the bandage, and with as soft, satisfied sigh began cleaning up the mess, putting everything away.

Raven herself didn't help, but was looking at her hand, examining it closely, as if looking for flaws or holes in the bandage.

"Star?" She turned her head slightly, but Raven wasn't looking at her as the alien reached to put the first aid kit away. The demon's eyes strayed to the bloodied shards of glass on the countertop, and her newly bandaged hand.

"Hmm?"

"…What happens now?"

Starfire closed the cabinet thoughtfully before deciding what to say. "Now," she paused until the violet eyes went back to the glass, then – using the scraps of bandage she hadn't put back in the kit – with a meaningful swipe cleared the tainted glass from the countertop into the trash, "We let it heal."

_**And breathe, just breathe  
**__**Oh breathe, just breathe**_

There was another long pause, as Raven's eyes trailed up to look at her, but then for some reason her gaze slid to the mirror over the sink.

"Let it heal?" she asked her reflection slowly, as if trying the idea out. Then she smirked, and the look was one Starfire recognized. It was the gleam she always got right before she loosed Hell on an opponent.

"Aa." Raven spoke, but Starfire was unsure just who she was talking to now. "Sounds good to me."

((End Resolution))

**Only by encounters can we grow. And only through growth can the scars of previous encounters be erased.**

"_Breathe (2 AM)" Anna Naltik_

((End Bleeding Shadows))

God, I am so sorry this took so long. Life and work (and The End Parts I, II, and III) got in the way. But all my wonderful reviewers (all seven of them!) made me so happy and so guilty that I just had to finish. So, cookies and this final chapter of Bleeding Shadows are just for you. Still have any questions, or are confused by something, drop me a line by e-mail or leave a review after the beep. See ya!

-Maiga Ryu

/...**_Beep_**/


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